


coded

by ghostscribe



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series)
Genre: Existential Crisis, Gen, Light Angst, damn its been awhile since i posted on here huh, thats about it i think?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24285241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostscribe/pseuds/ghostscribe
Summary: ...and Red suddenly realizes how quiet he is, and how everyone else speaks, but they often seem to say the same things, Green has the samebaibii baibiievery time, every nurse has the samewelcome, let us heal your Pokémon,every trainer he battles says one or two lines but then nothing else because they were not coded to say moreoh god -
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	coded

Red caught the thing off the coast of Cinnabar, and he's refused to let it out of its ball since then.

He holds the master ball in his hand today, though; a master ball, yes. He panicked the day it happened, he just needed to catch the creature before it ruined him, and the master ball was the only way to ensure his safety. It was this mass of clustered geometry, and it _shrieked_ at him, and lunged for his arm, his leg, and - and whatever the Pokémon's body was made of, it touched his skin and it burned like fire, like hottest hell, and, and - 

Red shakes his head, shakes the thoughts away. He hates remembering that. He _hates_ remembering that it actually happened. 

It was off the coast of Cinnabar, and that's where he stands now. 

Red takes a deep breath in. Deep breath out. In and out. In and out.

"...I know you can hear me in there," he says, lips so close to the ball that he could almost kiss it. "I _know_ you can. I just - I just need to ask you something, s-so... so, p-please don't be mad at me. D-Don't - don't hurt me again, please. I just need to ask you something."

His heart is pounding. His throat is tight. He may vomit. May pass out. He may die. 

His thumb runs along the seal of the pokéball, toward the button at the center. He's never been more apprehensive to do this. He trembled with excitement when he first held Bulbasaur's pokéball in his hand but now he's shaking with something between either fear or - or... _or._ This mysterious _or,_ and in a sense, that's what the Pokémon itself is.

It's either a Pokémon, or - _or._ It could be anything else. He doesn't know how to explain what he saw and what he experienced but he knows it happened and he knows he couldn't dare tell anyone else. He can't. He _won't._

"...please don't hurt me."

The button is pressed. The seal is released. The thing from the coast of Cinnabar rushes out of the ball in a flash of red light, there's a digital squeal and then there's just a faint static.

Red hears a blip, like a dialogue box opening on a video game. 

He opens his eyes and - and he's not sure what he should've expected.

There's still these messy pixels, this smattering of purple and orange and black, still motion in the same way the particles hovered around him at their first encounter, but before him is - is -

Himself. Almost.

It's not quite him. The hat is different; an arc of white instead of a full patch, and the reds are washed out. The hair is tanner, skin paler, it's himself if he were desaturated. The eyes glow orange and reject that comparison. Nothing makes sense about this. This doesn't make sense. 

Red looks at himself, then above his other's head. There is a physical dialogue box, and there is a message written in a pixelated font. 

[inside boring]

The letters flicker as if straining to be said, as if the - as if its - his? - voice is as weak as Red's, and, and Red supposes he shouldn't be surprised, but he is, because - this is - 

"What are you?" This is impossible, right? This isn't happening, right? He's dreaming, right? He's going to wake up, right? 

[think what?]

Then, another box;

[protagonist]

"P... Pro...tag..."

Red understands. He doesn't know how or why and he doesn't _want_ to understand, he doesn't want to realize the digital hum is not that of the creature but that of the world he stands on, he doesn't want to know that its body isn't _like_ pixels but it _is_ pixels because so is Red, Red is pixels and Red is static and Red is digital and and and and -

[surprised]

It - he - seems to ask that, and Red can only barely nod, joints stiff and creaking like an old porcelain doll, like a joystick that hasn't been touched in years.

[unaware. coast and assume aware if coast if run. unaware?]

He seems to mean something like _I assumed you were aware if you were running on the coast. Were you not aware?_

Red isn't sure how he knows that. He isn't sure of anything anymore.

"I..." He's going to scream. He's going to vomit. He's going to pass out. He's not going to wake up. Red is not going to wake up.

_I'm not going to wake up._

The - whatever the fuck it/he is, Pokémon or _or,_ \- leans to the side, hands in pockets, looking disinterested, or maybe unimpressed, or, or _or,_ maybe some inhuman emotion that Red couldn't possibly comprehend, but Red is not human either, nor is - nor is anything, anyone else, there is no _human_ because it's all just - all just - 

[inside. understand?]

"U-Understand." Red answers in its sort of speech, broken, as if the game didn't write this dialogue, and Red suddenly realizes how quiet he is, and how everyone else speaks, but they often seem to say the same things, Green has the same _baibii baibii_ every time, every nurse has the same _welcome, let us heal your Pokémon,_ every trainer he battles says one or two lines but then nothing else because _they were not coded to say more oh god -_

[Red.]

 _Pokémon up to level 20 will now obey your commands without fail,_ and he doesn't know how he didn't realize it, he doesn't know how he didn't realize how fucking weird that is, what is a level and why does a badge dictate what he can do and and -

[Red.]

 _Would you like to save your progress?,_ and he doesn't know how the words resonated in his mind and how he didn't think anything of it, how he was so _unaware,_ but now he _is_ aware and he's standing in front of himself or maybe he was never standing at all how long has it been since he went home or since the sun rose and set has he slept has he _ever_ slept has he eaten is - is anything - is anything -

"Is anything real?!"

Red _screams_ and somehow he senses he has not been heard. He is inside and there is nothing outside that cares to hear. 

The other before him shrugs, nonplussed. [define REAL.] Capital letters in place of a vocalized emphasis. 

"It's - i-it's - " Can't breathe, can't breathe, not that there's anything _to_ breathe, it is diodes and binary and circuits - "n-n-not - w-we're data. We're data." Oh god. There is no god, unless it was coded, _coded, coded -_ "We're data?!"

The data in front of him - some other type of Red - smiles, and somehow, there is something like sympathy in eyes that should know only code.

[unalone with know now. coded same and aware red.] The text scrolls. [reds.]

 _Reds,_ plural. One protagonist in one copy of one game.

Red collapses. He falls to his knees in the sand, sobs, covers his face. He feels tears and his skin feels warm. He feels like he is a physical thing. He feels as if he is flesh and bone.

He knows he is not. 

He doesn't wake up.

[Red.]

That's the message Red sees when the other shakes his shoulder. It does not hurt.

"...what? What?!" How could the other possibly comfort him? _Why_ would it comfort him?

[experience inside still. outside unmatter but alone in know and comfort.] The text scrolls. [coded code but warm.]

"...what?" Not so snippy this time, but just - just fucking confused. 

The other places a hand on Red's cheek, and it feels warm. 

[warmth inside code. coded but warm.] 

The text scrolls.

[unmatter. unchange feel.]

"...doesn't change what we feel?" 

His other nods. Red's mind is blank, though. He doesn't know how to process any of it. The other keeps its/his hand on his cheek and it feels like fire on his skin.

"...why did you have to tell me?"

The other pulls back, expression goes blank again. [thought aware of coast run edge. edge for duplicate cheat.]

And Red does, in fact, recall that after the event, there were scattered pokéballs all over the beach, over a hundred at least, and he remembers not questioning that because the supposed Pokémon was more terrifying to him than anything else, and, and -

Red covers his face again, cries again, it's just too much and he can't - he can't -

A _blip,_ indicating dialogue, but Red doesn't care to read it. It feels like fire when the other hugs him. 

A voice, digitally garbled, but Red does manage to hear a voice - his voice - from the other, and -

_"S'okay."_

And it's going to _have_ to be okay. There's no changing this. There is awareness and that - that's it. There is awareness of himself.

Self aware.

"...f-feels like you're b-burning me."

Another _blip._ Red fails to look up, and the other manages to answer with more garbled speech. _"Fire."_

Red almost laughs. This is fucking unbelievable. It's impossible and he's just - it's - he's just gonna laugh it off now. Fuck it. _Fuck it._ None of it matters. Unmatter. Coded but warm.

He's aware of something horrifying but that doesn't really change anything. He barely feels better, armed with that philosophy, but barely is better than nothing. 

"...'m calling you Fire."

_"'kay."_

_Fire,_ though the Pokédex read out _MissingNO_ when he tried to scan the creature below the waves. Doesn't matter if a mess of the universe is holding him, though. Doesn't matter if it's all code. It's still warm.

Coded, but warm.

**Author's Note:**

> in which i make a very quick and sloppy AU where Fire is just Missingno. why? don't worry about that it's fine everything is fine don't even worry abt it  
> featuring another obscure ghostscribe headcanon that's been developed: Fire, when i write him as someone who's self aware that everything is a video game, speaks in broken language. i like to imagine there'd be something "broken" about his coding that allows him to _be_ self aware, but the trade-off is this jumbled, fragmented dialogue he has. it's actually really fun to write, even if it can be uh. a little hard to understand ouo;;
> 
> also? i miiiight be making an isshushipping fic again finally after literally what 2 years now? i wanna get back into the writing zone :0 i'd been RPing for awhile and just kinda lost steam on that so it's back to basics babey! :D  
> if yr readin this i hope u have a good good day <3


End file.
